HESK: Hyugaren is the living nightmare for pandemic paranoids... It's not only filled with a considerable amount of dangerous pathogen beings, but also it actually recreates a post-apocalyptic pandemic, with every rough detail, such as different diseases, different contagious means, different sympthoms, different cures, and some other hidden features, almost unique not in Doom modding, but also in gaming itself.

Some currently-public features are:

Some of the main and more enjoyable aspects in this T.C. development are the new Gameplay Mechanics. As of it's 2.7.1 version, ZDoom offers marvellous ways to develop modding projects. It would be a pity to not take advantage of those awesome capabilities.

Two main mechanics are: Armor System (Which now allows players to stash their old armor in exchange for the new one they've found, for which they can return later if needed, saving any modification they've done to said gear) and Advanced Health System (Player has an immune system which will help him to counteract diseases, but also will be suceptible to some living beings, such as viruses, toxic compounds and others. Some drugs can be taken, but they can have a side effect on player's health).

Some minor mechanics, such as footsteps, are also included.

Some of the original sprites from Doom has been reworked, in an effort to enhance the deeply atmospheric experience. A more menacing aspect has been given to the Zombies, fiting the extreme scenario in which HESK: Hyugaren take place.

Map buildings themselves are one of the most important aspects of the very mod. Geometry and lighting, along with sounds and music, are the core of every experience. And there can't be appropiate map building without appropiate textures. So, HQ Textures are also implemented in HESK: Hyugaren.

... But textures are futile without proper geometry. That's why HESK: Hyugaren make use of disctintive geometry in it's scenarios. The void in which the ledges rely gives the map a vertigo-like feeling, which along with some special lighting, conform the HESK series style.

Liquid counterpart for HyperSkybox. It gives a more immersive feeling to the environment. But beware, those lovely sparkling pools are filled with lethal acid. Once you fall there, you'll have your skin ripped of your body within a second.

And if that wasn't enough, here's an ear-candy for ambient lovers. Almost 150 sounds, and counting, for Ambient, Weapons, Monsters, Scripted Actions, Footsteps and, specially, for Diseases and Sympthoms. You cannot be immersed in a world without one of the most exquisite senses!

There will be a more specific, unique bestiary, which will have dedicated creatures, such as the Lurker, a strange being with scythes instead of arms.

If there's something which will give a more unique gaming experience, it's variety. It will ensure many possibilities for the player, thus relying purely in his decision. From here onwards, it's up to you.

HESK: Hyugaren is in development since February 2014, and even though there isn't a solid release date to be announced, it's very likely that it won't take too far into 2015.

So, keep your air tube half-full, make a check-up of your medicines, prepare yourself to breathe a lot of dust, and for anything in the world let the armor hit the 0%.

HESK: Hyugaren - May 24th, 2015

This post is meant to keep all followers here informed about the development of the mod. Originally, I wanted to show all these features in a video recording, but I realized it would be better with a post here on ModDB. A lot of changes underwent in the mod since it was migrated to GZDoom 1.8.2, so it can be hard to reveal every detail without missing something. This is also a good opportunity to mention the stages and means of development I use in HESK.

First, HyperSkybox has entered in its final version development. As you could see in a previous snapshot from April, version 1.0 it's very different from the concept applied in the ZDoom development of Hyugaren.

It is no longer a fixed image scrolling through the skybox. Now clouds are randomly generated, have unique and semi-random properties, and are affected by external factors. Every cloud (Currently, out of 3 types, 10 variations each) has mass, translucency and maleability. These properties affect the way they are draw, and the way they behave in the Skybox.

Clouds spawn in a random rotation, altitude, position and with semi-random mass and translucency (Last two properties varies, based on cloud type and appereance). Translucency is random between certain points (Generally speaking, not beyond 0.9 and not below 0.7). Mass limits, however, are defined by cloud appareance (If the cloud is big and if the cloud is a stratocomulus or, for example, a cirrus cloud). In addition to their random spawning properties, they will rotate, morph, appear and disappear randomly through their lifetime.

Naturally, as in real life, clouds needs a certain amount of wind in order to move. So, wind is a factor in HyperSkybox, which will have also a semi-random strength and direction, and will change over time.

All these properties creates an unique skybox for every occasion, and gives the player much more immersion in the mod.

There are some comparatives of the same scenery, at different times:

Location A:

Location B

Location C

HyperSkybox can be adjusted: Cloud density and shaders enabler/disabler. This will give you some control, if you witness your performance being affected.

Another change, as you can see in the screenshots, is the HUD. Reworked, the hud will adapt itself to the new minimum resolution of GZDoom of 640x480, thus having much more presence and detail. Shaders are used to give a nice effect in the health bar. Also, immunity bar will vary its colour, based on the prescence of a disease. Nevertheless, only health, immunity and armor hud are currently developed. Further rework will continue, first with inventory HUD, then expanding into a new UI system.

Also, bobbing is now included. It synchronizes with footsteps sounds, and can be adjusted in HESK Options menu, changing its intensity, or disabling it at all. It will require further refinement, but the main idea is implemented and working.

In this short video, in addition of the new headbobbing and its flexibility, I'll show the new (Basic) colouring of the sceneries, HyperSkybox in "action", new sounds directives for immersion (Only reverbs, for the moment) and the new HUD (With Health Bar's fancy effect):

Shaders are also in further development. After some time of experiments, I managed to get Film Grain working. It can be disabled too. This can be made not only out of likeness, but also if your performance gets affected.

(This is a very raw demo. It needs a lot of adjusting, but is meant to show the main functionality of the GLSL code).

A new feature is also bullet chips in the floor and ceiling. At the moment, only mechanics has been developed, so I won't be able to show screenshots. You could customize your settings in this feature too, adjusting maximum decal amount, and maximum decal time. I'm also thinking about a ricochet system, but that's just a concept right now.

Main health system has been also reworked: There are things to take into consideration, like hunger, hydration, stamina, adrenalin and further technical data, like amounts of dopamine and ketamine in your system. This can seems to be a little excesive and complicated, but it's really simple once you start playing the mod, as most of these data are for background use and doesn't need to be taking into account by the player (Aside for keeping himself with a good health, eating and drinking well, not abusing drugs, checking his immunity and health, etc).

Also, further background complexity will be added to actions, to improve immersion. Things like taking a pill or injecting some medicine will affect you. For example, if you need to take a pill, logically you'll need to remove temporarly your helmet. So, when you do so, a fair amount of toxicity will enter in your system. In the other side, if you inject yourself an antidote, you'll not expose your body to toxic air, but you'll scratch a little bit your armor. Little things like that, which aren't too impressive, but makes some difference.

There are also variable menu music, inspired by mods like Misery and Autumn Aurora (For S.T.A.L.K.E.R.). Hardcore difficulty and complex mechanics were also inspired by said mods.

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In another chapter, I want to make you part of the development, keeping you informed on how it works. As being a lone developer here, it's very difficult to make room for a project of this magnitude, therefore a solid work structure is mandatory. There are six stages of development I use, and through them you will be able to understand and comprehend some of the effort that's being put into this project.

Stage 1: Concepts and main overview. This stage started back at the end of 2013, and finished in February 2014.

Stage 2: Basic development of concepts. This stage is not static, as always can be new features to add, which can be not only because new ideas, but also because technical factors, such as the GZDoom migration, which brought us new capabilities. Stage 2 started back in February 2014, and finished somewhere between 2014 and 2015, but it still has some presence in HESK development. A great example is the Immunity system, which was thought back in 2013, but I wasn't able to implement it until the last weeks of 2014 (Where most of the basics of the mod was already done), and now it's also in the Level 3 of development.

Stage 3: Refinement of concepts and further development: This one is a transition between the raw application of concepts and final form of said features. Here is where we are now (Examples: HyperSkybox rework, Gore rework, Footsteps mechanics refinement, HUD redesign).

Stage 4: Art development. This stage isn't static either, and can be started even aside stage 1. However, in this mod we have only the required art (Sprites, models, textures, music and sounds) for mechanics purposes, and some "advanced" art for experimental purposes. I believe this level will be reached sometime between August and September this year.

Stage 5: Level design. This is pretty much the last production stage before the final release.

Stage 6: Testing and corrections. This is the last stage, sometimes known as "Beta-Testing", which will review the mod in order to get rid of errors, glitches, bugs and other undesirable effects.

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Now, for the closing lines, I want to make a nice announcement.

We already have some external collaborators for the mod. As this mod gathered followers, people offered their talent to the development. I'm not disclosing yet their names or their work, but I'm telling you they're artists, and are collaborating with great pieces of art. This is a great advance towards a more solid release, because these are very talented people (Some already professionals working for the VG industry).

So, even after many months of silence, you can rest peacefully now: HESK Hyugaren is still alive, expanding and getting stronger everyday. It release may look unreachable, the same with news about the development. But they say good things takes times. And I agree.

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I'm actually very ashamed for my absence here in ModDB, and the lack of HESK related news in general. I'm very sorry for that.

This reply will be perhaps too long, but I hope I can cover the entire situation and give you (and all people here) a much deserved explanation.

In short, development of HESK is better than ever, and I've done more in a few months than in the past year and a half.

But for expanding in why it took so long to continue and why I've been too silent all this time, I'll reply with a "mid-length" update below.

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Since my last update here (which was the last one in the entire community), my relationship with HESK had been very fuzzy, to say the least. However, its development was definitely not in a halt.

Truth is, this being my first project, I was learning more about ZDoom features in general each day. I was excited to try new things for the TC, completely misplacing my new knowledge in inconsequential features.

When I gave the whole project an objective judgement, it didn't looked like the original HESK: Hyugaren anymore. It was rather a half-assed RPG with some fancy effects in OpenGL and a lot of special mechanics (even a leveling system was about to be implemented), rather than the Doom-driven survival FPS I originally announced back in 2014, to which most of the mod's follower here were aiming to.

This can be easily noticed when resorting to my last responses/articles, where I put most of my emphasis (if not the whole attention) into not-so-important graphic addons rather than in essential features (like weapons, enemies, and items).

Then I could take a look to the coding (of crucial, original mechanics): It was horrible. More than horrible, disastrous. Even more, it was continously updated in a SINGLE ACS source file. Everything. The health mechanics, the scripted sounds, the scripted events, the HUD graphics, the weapon mechanics. There were bad references, thousands of innecesary code lines, functions and scripts even I didn't knew what they were for.

With all this in mind, and acknowledging the whole situation, in January this year I decided to take a step back, redo the entire ACS and Decorate from scratch, use proper object management, get rid of unnecessary features and focus on the ones comprised in the original concept. This is: Having a toxicity in the health system with improved Weapon/Armor mechanics, with new items, enemies and weapons; preserving the Doom essence in its gameplay.

For that purpose, I got back into ZDoom, with a post-release GZDoom edition in mind, with Hyperskybox, GL effects and HD sprites/textures. Every advance done in GZDoom is kept and will be used for that edition, along with a Reshade addon (a Open-GL shader injector I use for other games). But for now, my priority is the original HESK.

Currently, I've had redone almost every ACS script (a few old ones are being kept for map compatibility, until I restart my work in mapping), and decorate is completely new and clean; everything is redeable and easy to manipulate (although there is no need for that, since Toxicity and gameplay mechanics overall are finished in this fashion). With this new workflow, HESK got its first 3 new weapons: Beretta 92, Minigun and AS-VAL, all completely functional and each very disctintive from the other. There is a new, minor mechanic completed (related to both, Weapons and Armor) I'll introduce in the future update I'm planning to post.

Again, I truly apologize for my absence and my lack of public continuity (and for the wall text above). It was a chain of selfish attitudes I needed to get rid of, and it wasn't easy.

Oh wow thats quite the detailed response, thank you for responding and keeping us informed with this detailed post. I am looking forward to this mod when you release it, until then, keep up the awesome work man, you have my support.